Psalms 25:16-17

25:16 Turn toward me and have mercy on me,

for I am alone ¹  and oppressed!

25:17 Deliver me from my distress; ² 

rescue me from my suffering! ³ 

Psalms 102:17

102:17 when he responds to the prayer of the destitute, ⁴ 

and does not reject ⁵  their request. ⁶ 

Psalms 143:3-4

143:3 Certainly ⁷  my enemies ⁸  chase me.

They smash me into the ground. ⁹ 

They force me to live ¹⁰  in dark regions, ¹¹ 

like those who have been dead for ages.

143:4 My strength leaves me; ¹² 

I am absolutely shocked. ¹³ 

Isaiah 41:17

41:17 The oppressed and the poor look for water, but there is none;

their tongues are parched from thirst.

I, the Lord, will respond to their prayers; ¹⁴ 

I, the God of Israel, will not abandon them.

John 14:18

14:18 “I will not abandon ¹⁵  you as orphans, ¹⁶  I will come to you. ¹⁷ 

[25:16]  ¹ tn That is, helpless and vulnerable.

[25:17]  ² tc Heb “the distresses of my heart, they make wide.” The text makes little if any sense as it stands, unless this is an otherwise unattested intransitive use of the Hiphil of רָחַב (rakhav, “be wide”). It is preferable to emend the form הִרְחִיבוּ (hirkhivu; Hiphil perfect third plural “they make wide”) to הַרְחֵיב (harkhev; Hiphil imperative masculine singular “make wide”). (The final vav [ו] can be joined to the following word and taken as a conjunction.) In this case one can translate, “[in/from] the distresses of my heart, make wide [a place for me],” that is, “deliver me from the distress I am experiencing.” For the expression “make wide [a place for me],” see Ps 4:1.

[25:17]  ³ tn Heb “from my distresses lead me out.”

[102:17]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew adjective עַרְעָר (’arar, “destitute”) occurs only here in the OT. It is derived from the verbal root ערר (“to strip oneself”).

[102:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “despise.”

[102:17]  ⁶ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 16-17 are functioning as future perfects, indicating future actions that will precede the future developments described in v. 15.

[143:3]  ⁷ tn Or “for.”

[143:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “an enemy.” The singular is used in a representative sense to describe a typical member of the larger group of enemies (note the plural “enemies” in vv. 9, 12).

[143:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “he crushes on the ground my life.”

[143:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “sit.”

[143:3]  ¹¹ sn Dark regions refers to Sheol, which the psalmist views as a dark place located deep in the ground (see Ps 88:6).

[143:4]  ¹² tn Heb “my spirit grows faint.”

[143:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “in my midst my heart is shocked.” For a similar use of the Hitpolel of שָׁמֵם (shamem), see Isa 59:16; 63:5.

[41:17]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “will answer them” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[14:18]  ¹⁵ tn Or “leave.”

[14:18]  ¹⁶ tn The entire phrase “abandon you as orphans” could be understood as an idiom meaning, “leave you helpless.”

[14:18]  ¹⁷ sn I will come to you. Jesus had spoken in 14:3 of going away and coming again to his disciples. There the reference was both to the parousia (the second coming of Christ) and to the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to the disciples. Here the postresurrection appearances are primarily in view, since Jesus speaks of the disciples “seeing” him after the world can “see” him no longer in the following verse. But many commentators have taken v. 18 as a reference to the coming of the Spirit, since this has been the topic of the preceding verses. Still, vv. 19-20 appear to contain references to Jesus’ appearances to the disciples after his resurrection. It may well be that another Johannine double meaning is found here, so that Jesus ‘returns’ to his disciples in one sense in his appearances to them after his resurrection, but in another sense he ‘returns’ in the person of the Holy Spirit to indwell them.